breaker of horses and of men
by seaofsound
Summary: Moon cuts Gladion's hair. Introspection ensues.


**breaker of horses and of men**

She holds the scissors in her hand, poised and ready as if preparing for battle. Her fingers apply pressure and a soft shearing noise fills the air, though only the space between the blades gets sliced.

One hand at her hip, Moon cocks her head expectantly. "Are you sure?" she asks. Her voice is quiet and almost lost to the wind, and he has to strain to hear her words.

It's chillier than he expected it to be out here in the outskirts of Hau'oli City. Music drifts out from Moon's house, her mother singing along off-key to some famous Unovan tune. Gladion pauses and resists the urge to bite his lip, because that'll only show more hesitation and weakness. And isn't that why he's allowing this to happen? Because this curtain of overgrown hair was maintained to protect him, another layer to lessen the pain? He shivers, a breeze passing through from the ocean, and clenches his fist.

"Yes. Just get it over with."

Moon blinks, and he watches as her eyelashes flutter and her expression remains indifferent. Moon's poker face is admirable, perhaps the best he's ever seen, but that's also just _her_. She doesn't move or say anything for longer than he'd like. Warmth spreads from his face down to his fingers, annoyance and anxiety wrapped up in one, a two-for-one deal he never wanted.

"Can you hurry it up? I don't have all day," he says, cringing, because he doesn't mean to sound so angry. It's just that she's thinking too much when he can't bear to think at all.

"Why do you want to do this?"

She takes a step back, grass yielding beneath her feet. He almost yells in frustration before she distracts him, her fingers lightly combing through his bangs, so gentle he wouldn't have known they were there if he weren't facing her. He tenses, earlier irritation replaced with something akin to caution and curiosity, and he looks up at her from under his hair. She holds a few strands between two fingers, lips slightly parted in fascination. Her own hair is fine, thin like the drapery of a gossamer curtain, dark and shiny and impenetrable. Moon is pretty, this he knows quite well, with her black hair and freckles and angular eyes, but that's not what he cares about, nor why he's here.

"Dress code," he blurts, almost jokingly, because no matter what lie he spews she won't believe him anyway. Moon looks down at him, brow furrowed just enough for him to know she's annoyed, and the corners of her lips dip downward.

"Gladion," she says, chidingly, dragging out the last syllable. Heat rushes to his cheeks and he avoids her eyes. It's nice, the way his name rolls off her tongue, a soft lilt to her words indicative of her Kantonian roots. She guides his gaze back into position with just a light push on his chin, and Gladion admits defeat to her power as she slips the scissors perpendicular to his bangs. Soft clipping fills the air, and he keeps his eyes closed in concentration.

Or fear, as he allows Moon to slide past another of his protective barriers. He isn't sure whether to be angry or afraid that he allows her to traipse into his life so easily, as if she were simply walking through the door of her house or sweeping his team in battle. But since he met her, he couldn't let go of this nagging feeling of suffocation, that he, much like his partner Silvally, would have to get rid of his training wheels and knee pads eventually. Break his metaphorical helmet, so to speak. He did once tell Moon that he and his partner were one in the same, after all, subject to the whims of his mother. But Lusamine is gone, has been gone for as long as he can remember. He and Lillie lost two parents the day his father disappeared, and it came time for him to stand alone and look after himself far earlier than it should have. He just never imagined a time would come when he'd have to allow others to support him, too, and that they would regardless of what he said or wanted.

It's over faster than he expects, and he opens his eyes to find Moon brushing the stray hairs from his person with a brush. The breeze leads the remains away, and he vaguely hears her mention Diglett and Dugtrio as his hair floats in the wind, though her voice is nothing but white noise easing the tension away from his bones.

Smiling, she turns back to him and asks, "How do you feel?"

Gladion raises his hand to mess with the hair that isn't there anymore, and his hand falls to his lap with a resigned thud. "Naked, to say the least."

He sighs, looking away as she pushes the rest of his hair back over his head. Her touch is gentle and barely there, yet foreign all the same. In spite of all the time they spend together, she always sits two hand lengths away, and they rarely brush hands when they walk. It may have something to do with the way he flinches whenever people get too close, or how he won't allow himself to touch any part of her, regardless of how often she says it's okay. But now, as her fingertips glide over his hair and forehead and temples, he shuts his eyes and allows the world to go black, to fall to the back of his mind as he lets down his barriers, as if to say, "This is me, and this is all I have to offer you. I hope it's enough."

"I like it," she says, coaxing him out of his thoughts. He blinks in surprise, hoping he didn't accidentally say anything aloud, though Moon's tranquil expression tells him nothing of the sort. So he relaxes in his seat and focuses on the call of Pikipek, on the music softly playing from inside her home. Here, in Moon's backyard with the sun beating down on them and the sea breeze ruffling their clothes and her fingers on his skin, there is no Aether, no League challengers, no responsibility. Just Gladion and Moon, two people with the world turning around them instead of on their shoulders, for once, with fantasies of normalcy.

They remain like that for what Gladion wishes could be eternities. He catches her wrist—small and delicate, like if he squeezed or twisted ever so slightly it'd break—and runs the pad of his thumb over her knuckles. The movement feels natural, even though he's practically diving into uncharted territory. He almost finds it ridiculous that simple things like this were once so forbidden to him.

"Naked?" she repeats, cocking her head. Her hair follows her movement, drawing barriers in the path of the sunlight. It bounces around her like a halo, stretching and compressing all at the same time. It makes her look ethereal, as if the sun itself is telling him that he doesn't deserve to look at her or to receive her attention. And he doesn't. But for now, he allows himself to revel in it, to be selfish and pretend that he does, if only for this moment.

"Yeah." He smiles, anxiety falling to the back of his mind where it'll remain for just a little while. She laughs, soft and breathy and for far shorter than he'd like, and ghosts her lips over his forehead.


End file.
